The monster grabbed for the knife with both hands, lost its balance, and fell. Even falling, it giggled, until the noise was cut short by the thud as it hit the ground.
Felouen slashed at the next golem within reach. The blade cut deeply and lopped off three of its fingers, but the wound didn't bleed and the creature showed no signs of pain. It kept climbing, and she was forced to climb still higher, onto a weak, green branch that bent alarmingly under her weight. The golem stopped and looked up at her, and its giggling became shriller. It grasped the branch to which she clung and began rocking it back and forth.
"Stop it!" she screamed. "Damn you!"
Beneath her and to one side, Gwaryon was fighting his own battle. He had wedged himself tightly into a crotch of a sturdy branch and was kicking the monsters in the head as soon as they were within reach. His legs were bloody ribbons, and his sandal-clad feet were unrecognizable as feet. His skin, at least that which wasn't bloody, was gray. Felouen saw the beads of pain-sweat standing out on his forehead—but his face never lost its determination. She watched one golem fall to the ground as Gwaryon kicked it loose from its perch. It hit heavily, lay still for a moment—then rose, and begin its climb back up the tree. It had already been replaced by the next monster.
Felouen realized with horror it was the one that had taken Gwaryon's knife in its eye. They're unkillable, she thought with sudden, overwhelming despair, and clung tighter to her branch. The monster beneath her kept rocking it, swinging it in faster and further arcs. Its hysterical laughter never stopped.
* * *
"Stop it! Damn you!" someone screamed from ahead of them, and the sounds of a desperate struggle and a bloodcurdling chittering made the forest sound like something out of a horror story. In front of her, Maclyn apparently heard it, too. He started to run. "Weapons and armor," he told his mother. Silver swords materialized in their hands, and chased and enameled armor appeared around them.
God, I wish I could do that, Lianne thought, breaking into a run behind them.
They were faster than she was. They ran effortlessly, appearing to do no more than jog—yet they pulled away from her at an impossible rate. She ran flat out, putting everything she had into the effort, yet she fell further and further behind. The two elves darted through a thicket without slowing, and she stopped completely to disentangle herself from the inch-long thorns that held her clothes in fast embrace.
By the time she was out of the thicket, the elves had disappeared from sight, but she still heard the fighting, and the—other noises. The sounds came from the other side of the small hill she was climbing. She slowed to a trot, by necessity picking her route more carefully than the elves had. She wondered now what in hell she was doing out here. What good was she, an unarmed human, in a fight where at least two of the combatants were well-armed and armored elves? She suspected she would be more of a liability—someone who would end up needing to be rescued. By the time she'd reached the crest of the hill, she had decided to find a safe spot in which to wait out the fight.
Close up, it sounded even worse. Unfortunately, she couldn't see much. The holly's leaves blocked most of her view, but a steady green glow from the tree's center backlit shadowy forms; the fight was more terrible than she could have anticipated. In the cramped space under a holly tree's branches, Maclyn and Dierdre battled misshapen horrors that looked from the brief glimpses she got like the most awful nightmares the folks from Industrial Light and Magic could have concocted. She saw two elves she didn't recognize, stranded in the thin upper branches of the tree, fighting more of the things. She saw one of the white-eyed monsters then, and squeezed her eyes shut until she realized she couldn't wish the nightmare away. The elves in the tree were wounded and bloody—the monsters they fought appeared unscathed.
Lianne saw Maclyn bring his sword straight down on top of one monster's head in a two-handed blow that should have split the thing in half, but the monster never fell.
A scream of pure anguish drew her attention back to the treetop. One of the monsters had overcome the male elf and had severed one of his arms. It dropped like some macabre fruit to land against the tree roots. The elf screamed once more as the horror gnawed through his remaining forearm. Lianne shoved her fist against her mouth to silence her own screams; one last slash of the thing's claws and the elf's severed head hung from its grip.
The body tumbled from the tree, with unreal slowness. The golem threw the head in a lazy overhand toss that sent it soaring in a slow, graceful arc toward Lianne. As it passed beyond the spread of the holly tree, it winked out of existence as if it had never been.
Lianne stared at the spot where it disappeared and shuddered.
It was only the steady repetition of someone calling her name that brought her out of her stunned reverie.
"Lianne? Lianne? Can you hear me?" Dierdre shouted. Lianne could make out her shadowy form, back pressed against Maclyn's, keeping the monsters at bay with a steady barrage of swordstrokes.
"Maybe she ran off," Maclyn yelled. He parried a talon-strike aimed at his face and landed a stop-thrust that did no apparent damage to its victim.
"Maybe we just can't hear her because of this damned spell. I hope that's the case."
"I'm right here!" Lianne yelled from her hiding place.
None of the combatants paid her any attention.
Certain that she was exposing herself to attack by the monsters, Lianne did the bravest thing she had ever done. She stood up and ran toward the fight, again yelling, "I'm right here."
It was if she didn't exist to those battling under the tree. And that was as horrible as all the rest combined.
"Lianne," Dierdre yelled between swordstrokes, "if you're there, listen—a spell traps us in here. Look for knotted cords around this tree—probably four or five. If you—"
One monster got inside her defense, and the sound of talons raking across armor screeched through the woods.
"If you find the knots, untie them!" Dierdre yelled. "And hurry!"
Lianne heard the elves parrying claws and Maclyn's voice asking, between panted breaths, "What if she's not out there?"
She heard Dierdre answer, "Then we die."
Lianne stared at the headless, armless torso that lay under the tree, and then through the branches, at Dierdre and Mac. Then she looked up at the bleeding, exhausted elf stranded in the upper branches. The one tireless monster who was trying to dislodge her had shifted tactics and was scraping across the branch with his claws. Bits of wood flew away with every stroke. It wouldn't be long until the branch broke.
Cords? she wondered. Made into knots that I should untie?
She could not imagine what good untying knots would do—but she was willing to concede that this was not an ordinary situation, and that the rules she knew didn't apply. She ran to the periphery of the tree and scouted around the branches.
In a moment, she had located one knot. It was tied in a heavy, glossy black cord, and it wove in and out around itself half a dozen different ways. It took her a bit of fumbling even to discover where the ends had been tucked, and once she had found them, even longer to return the cord to its unknotted state.
As soon as the knot was unraveled, however, Lianne heard Maclyn yell, "There she is!" One of the monsters suddenly noticed her, too, and charged toward her. Mere inches away, it broke through the branches and was brought up short by an invisible barrier. It shrieked in frustration, and charged again.
She backed away frightened.
"Get the rest of the knots," Dierdre shouted.
"What will happen when they are untied?" Lianne asked.
Dierdre looked puzzled, then shouted, "I can't hear you."
Lianne shrugged and hurried around the periphery of the tree. A flash of red caught her eye, and she stopped. The monster that charged at her as she pulled the red cord out from under the branches sent her heart leaping into her throat, and the other creatures' incessant chittering giggles made it almost impossible to concentrate—but wit
h trembling fingers, she managed to untangle the second knot.
"If we survive this," Dierdre suddenly remarked, "I'm going to severely damage the person responsible."
"I know how you feel," Maclyn agreed.
There was a creak, and the branch that supported the third elf sagged. "Felouen!" Maclyn yelled, "Hang on!"
"I'd figured that out already, thanks," Felouen shouted back.
Giggles grated along her nerves. Third cord, she thought, and refused to let herself consider what would happen when all the cords were unwound.
It took a bit of digging in the spot where she thought it might be, but she did locate the third cord. It was white.
She ignored the crash that indicated the branch had broken through, ignored the scream of fear and pain and the heavy thud that followed. Lianne fumbled with the complex knot and worked it loose.
"Magic works again," Dierdre muttered, and that terse statement was followed by a flash of brilliant blue light and a loud sizzling sound.
Lianne ran to the fourth quarter of the imaginary circle the unknown magician had laid out, and within seconds had discovered a twisted length of green cord. Familiar now with the permutations the knots had taken, she quickly pulled it apart.
There was a low rumble, and the air around her shimmered like air over pavement on a hot day. For an instant, the situation under the tree continued unchanged. The monsters slashed at the elves, the one who had broken the hapless Felouen loose from her tree clambered down after her, chuckling evilly. The monster that had been charging at Lianne broke free of its circle and came straight for her, and Dierdre and Maclyn fought their way toward the body of their fallen comrade.
Then, with a resounding "crack," the monsters and the dismembered remains of the dead elf vanished.
Dierdre looked around as if she couldn't believe it was over, then sagged against the tree trunk. Maclyn charged to Felouen's side.
Lianne crawled through the holly's low-hanging branches with some difficulty and joined him.
Felouen was badly hurt. She lay, unresponsive, on the woodland floor, her breathing ragged and irregular. Dark blood seeped into the fabric of her shirt, and through a tear in the cloth, Lianne could see the white gleam of ribs and the dark bubbling of a large, open wound.
"Mother!" Maclyn's voice was hoarse. He knelt beside the downed woman, probing for hidden injuries. "Hurry!"
"Do you need me to get an ambulance?" Lianne asked. She felt foolish asking that question when, looking at the woman, the answer seemed so obvious—but she wasn't dealing with humans, she reminded herself. Elves might have other ways of dealing with emergencies.
"D.D. will take care of her," Maclyn said.
Lianne watched D.D. moving around the tree toward them. Her armor flickered once, then vanished, replaced by clothes that looked like the ones the other woman wore.
D.D. bit her lip and knelt beside her son. "How bad?"
Mac's voice was without expression. "We may lose her."
The elven woman nodded and rested her hand on Felouen's shoulder. "I'm taking her back. You and Lianne find out what you need to about your child. I'll meet you in the Grove when you're done."
Maclyn did—something. He sketched a kind of arch with his fingers, anchored on one side to the holly tree. Lianne watched the air around the two elven women shift and darken.
Something about that arch made her feel queasy.
But beyond that arch were hints of unearthly beauty. Was that the elven world?
The images of wet forest and misty, enchanted grove blurred over each other and shifted disconcertingly until the teacher had a hard time looking at the Gate. D.D. pulled Felouen through, and both of them took on the same hazy, half-there appearance of the world beyond. Then Mac spoke a few quiet syllables, and they were gone.
"Come," he said, turning to Lianne. "We still have to find out about Amanda."
CHAPTER NINE
Belinda concealed herself and the entirely too fancy T-Bird along a riding path just out of sight of the Chevy and her targets. There was no way she was going to get out of her vehicle around that hexed Chevy again. There was no telling what might happen to her. She remembered the incongruous picture of a horse trotting through the night behind her first rental car, after the damned race-driver stole it—and the way the Chevy was mysteriously missing when she went back to try stealing it. She recalled the odd behavior of the '57's doors the time she ended up as Mac's captive. Certain pieces of her last few days began to form a picture—one she didn't like at all.
In a sudden burst of curiosity, and with some trepidation, she took the little black meter out of her pocketbook and flashed it at the car. The needle quivered and moved steadily across the scale, wavering slightly as it hit 3.71 P and came to a halt. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A car sitting in a field doing not a goddamned thing rates higher on the psi scale than any people I've ever checked—except that bastard Mac Lynn and his blond bimbo mechanic.
It figures, she thought. She panned the psi-meter in a semicircle that encompassed the general direction in which Mac and company had been heading, and left room over for error. Sure enough, she picked up one narrow burst of activity at about 8 P's of intensity—mid-scale, and another of about the same reading. That would be the two of them, she thought—Mac and the mechanic. She scanned beyond them from force of habit, letting the meter play across the field at the dreary mix of scrub-oaks and long-leaf pines—
About fifteen degrees west of her two identified targets, the needle dove all the way across into the red zone, hitting 30 P, then kept moving until it vanished into the out of range sector. It stayed there.
Belinda leaned her head against the headrest and stared at the little ventilation dots in the car's headliner until her eyes unfocused and the dots blurred and appeared to move toward her. What the hell have I gotten myself into? she wondered. The car, the driver, the mechanic—and something huge out there in the woods. Either this place is a hotbed of psi activity—or something is wrong with my meter.
Now, that was a genuinely comforting thought. She knew she didn't even raise a .01 P blip on Mel's scale—she shuddered to think what might have happened to her if she had—so maybe her meter was screwed or picking up something else. Something cars and normal people and whatever radiated.
She pointed the psi-meter at herself and pushed the button.
The needle didn't budge. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Her eyes narrowed, and she pointed at her own car. She obtained the same results. To her left, coming from the same general direction as all the psi activity, a kid in a pink raincoat shot through the woods at high speed. She was heading straight for the fancy house with all the horses and pastures. Testing, testing, Belinda thought, and aimed the meter at her.
"Shit. Shit-shit-shit-shit-double shit!" Belinda snarled. The needle had again shot all the way across the meter and buried itself in the out of range zone. She flung the black box across the seat, and stared at the galloping kid. What are the odds? she wondered. Just what are the fucking odds of running into that many TK's in one place?
She bit her lip. The odds are probably better than running into them one at a time and spread all over, she decided after long contemplation, if their being here was no coincidence. Do psychics attract psychics? And another thought, straight out of a Spielberg movie: Do adult psychics track down kids?
Her head throbbed, and the thinking she was forced to do was making it worse, but the pain pills would make her fall asleep if she took any. Live with the pain, she told herself. You may be about done with it anyway, champ. 'Cause kids are little and weak and naive—and they don't drive haunted '57 Chevys. And I'm betting you can heist a little kid way out here in the sticks without anyone being the wiser.
A thought occurred to her. There were kids all over the racetrack the day I did my little set-up. Wouldn't it just be a bitch if the kid was the one I was looking for after all? She started her engine and pulled carefully o
ut onto the road that led past the kid's house.
"Kendrick," the mailbox said. And the flowing script on the sandblasted wooden shingle read, "KENDRICK'S BAL-A-SAR STABLES—FINE ARABIANS."
Horses, huh? I can fake it with the horsey set. Oh, yeah, kid . . . I can find you with no trouble at all. A new haircut, and a pair of jodhpurs and riding boots, and I'll be back.
* * *
Mel Tanbridge drove through Fayetteville accompanied by his constant companion, distaste. Military towns annoyed him. The entertainment wasn't classy enough, the architecture was just plain drab, and the people themselves—well, he decided, the less thought about them the better. Rude, crude, and obnoxious were the kindest adjectives he could come up with for these peons.
Take the maids at the hotel Stevens had been staying at, for instance. Stevens' room was paid through the end of the week, and they knew he'd been staying there, but they refused to tell him anything about the man—whether he'd left in a hurry, who he'd been with—anything. They'd told him hotel visitors were confidential guests (the way they pronounced "confidential" positively made Mel's skin crawl), and even when he'd flashed a couple of twenties in their direction, they'd blinked their stupid cow eyes at him and said they didn't know anything. He was ready to believe them—the bitches. He'd gone on to break into Stevens' hotel room and had scoured it with a thoroughness that would have left the simple-minded maids chartreuse with envy. He came out with more questions than he took in.
The room was beyond nondescript. That fit well enough with Stevens' character. The thing that puzzled him was that most of Stevens' belongings were still in it. The money was not to be found, of course—except for a bit of change on the dresser that made his stomach twitch in uncomfortable ways. Nobody left change if they weren't intending to come back—and pretty promptly, too, in cheap hotels. His bags were present, his clothes still balled up in the drawers. The bed was made, and the maids had placed the pile of dirty clothes neatly on the room's single chair next to the ubiquitous round hotel table under the equally ever-present hanging hotel lamp.
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